Macomb's Purchase was a near 4 million acre tract of northern New York State purchased from the state in 1791 by Alexander Macomb, a merchant turned land speculator who had become wealthy during the American Revolutionary War.
History
In 1792, a decade after the end of the American Revolutionary War, the state of New York was struggling financially. It opened for sale nearly five million acres of land which state officials, under pressure from land speculators and other business interests, had forced the Iroquois tribes, allies of the British during the rebellion, to cede. Alexander Macomb, William Constable, and Daniel McCormick agreed to purchase nearly from the state at the extremely low price of 8 pence (New York state money) per acre. This was an enormous amount of land, about one-eighth of the entire state of New York, and included a large amount of land of the Oneida people, who'd sided with the rebels during the Revolution. Convinced something illegal must have occurred, the New York State Legislature held exhaustive hearings into the land purchase, but no wrongdoing was uncovered. Greenleaf had purchased a cargo of tea from Rhode Island merchant John Brown (whose family funded and lent its name to Brown University). Greenleaf paid for the cargo partly in cash, and partly with the land he owned in New York. This became known as Brown's Tract.